The Weekly Forum - 29 May

Who governs? Philosophers have asked this question since Antiquity. One person  (monarchy or tyranny)? Several people (aristocracy or oligarchy)? The people (the republic or democracy)? Today’s system is surely oligarchy pretending to be democracy but, unlike in previous ages, you are not even allowed to ask these questions. Or if you do, you do not get answers, as Pepijn van Houwelingen recently re-discovered to his dismay when he asked who governs the Netherlands. Is it those men and women who win elections – the great theatre of modern political life – or do those people, once elected, in fact obey secret orders from elsewhere? Last year, a Dutch minister said she could not implement certain manifesto promises on health because of ‘NATO commitments on resilience’ which had been announced to her and her fellow ministers by the National Coordinator for Security and Counter-terrorism (NCTV) – but only after the election. So who governs? The people or NATO? Only FVD asks the questions.

Watch Pepijn van Houwelingen’s questions here

The EU has been governing Europe for decades – not very well. It likes to hold meetings and produce reports. These cost a lot of money and are then forgotten about. So a report from 2000 about how Europe was going to become competitive by 2010 was replaced in 2010 by one saying it would be competitive by 2020. Then came the Draghi report last year putting forward yet another meaningless 10-year plan. A generation has been wasted. Here as ever, only FVD goes to the root of the problem. As Pepijn van Houwelingen said recently, Europe does not need such reports, it does not need a centralised strategy. Centralised strategy is killing Europe. Europe needs diversity – real political diversity, including sovereignty at national and even regional level. Europe’s periods of greatness have occurred when there was diversity and competition between states – Greek city states, Italian republics, the Dutch provinces, nation states. No one outside FVD has the historical breadth to understand the depth of our problems.

Watch Pepijn van Houwelingen’s speech here

Perhaps the clearest sign that the people do not govern comes from the recent reversal of Brexit being adopted by sleight of hand in Britain. Without any public consultation, Britain has agreed to a new ‘common fisheries policy’ for 12 years; to align itself with EU food regulations, making trade deals with third countries more difficult; and to integrate its foreign and military policy very closely with that of the EU. It is EU membership in all but name, including a crucial political dimension. It is a textbook case of the establishment getting its revenge on the people – the people who voted not once but three times to leave the EU (in 2016 and in two national elections in 2019). Ewen Stewart of Global Britain nails the whole chicanery in a piece we are honoured to re-publish.

Read Ewen Stewart’s article here

Ulrike Reisner and Edouard Husson were our guests on The Forum this week, discussing their new book, ‘Decolonise Europe’.

Watch The Forum & Friends here